Belgrade/Budapest - Hungary would release a "certain" amount of natural gas from its reserves to neighbouring Serbia, President Boris Tadic announced in Belgrade.

Tadic said he arranged with Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany for an emergency delivery due to start in mid-afternoon. Only a day before a Serbian delegation returned from Budapest empty- handed, failing to secure a delivery from Hungarian reserves.

In Budapest, Gyurcsany confirmed that Hungary would sell between 1 and 2 million cubic metres of gas to Serbia daily, as long as the situation permits. That amount covers up to one-quarter of Serbia's needs.

Budapest - Hungarian police have arrested two men in connection with the fatal shooting of a headmaster and his deputy at a school in Budapest, Hungarian police announced on Thursday.

Hungary was shocked on Wednesday evening by reports that a masked gunman had opened fire at a special-needs school in Budapest, killing the headmaster and his deputy.

The school treasurer and a security guard were subsequently arrested and charged with murder, police said. The two men had been sacked the same day over an embezzlement affair.

Budapest - As air pollution levels reached worryingly high levels, the Budapest Mayor's Office urged citizens of the Hungarian capital to leave their cars at home on Tuesday and said that an official smog warning could be issued on New Year's Day.

With Budapest cloaked in smog, Istvan Bozoky of Hungary's National Meteorological Service told the local news agency MTI that no wind is expected before Thursday, so the situation is unlikely to improve.

Budapest  - Freezing weather forced a Kosovan family to turn itself in after crossing illegally from Serbia into the EU, Hungarian border guards saidon Sunday.

Szilvana Tuczakov, a spokeswoman for the police in Csongrad County in southern Hungary, told the local news agency MTI that the two adults had probably feared for the safety of their four children. The oldest was just six years of age.

The family gave itself up to border guards on Saturday afternoon as temperatures plunged well below zero Celsius. The group subsequently claimed asylum and was transferred to Hungary's refugee processing centre in the town of Bekescsaba.

Budapest - The head of Transparency International Hungary was one of four to resign from the Hungarian government's Anti-Corruption Coordination Board because they felt their work was wasted, the corruption watchdog confirmed on Tuesday.

Transparency International Hungary said in a statement sent to the state-owned news agency MTI that the work of the advisory board, set up by the government in the summer of 2007, had become "irrelevant."

Budapest - Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic refused on Friday to sign a bill passed by parliament that would allow the use of Hungarian place names in text books, in a move that could reignite a long-running row between Slovakia and its Hungarian minority.

Current Slovak law allows only the use of the Slovak place names even in textbooks designed for the country's Hungarian-speaking minority.

The issue has caused considerable tension in recent months between Slovakia, the 10 per cent of its population that is ethnically Hungarian and, by extension, Hungary itself.